Plant Diseases

Garden diseases can be difficult to diagnose—many of them have similar symptoms. They may have different treatments that are appropriate at different times in the disease lifecycles. And of course, you need to know when to try to save your plants and when it’s best to pull them out and minimize risk to the rest of your garden. We’ll cover...

Becky Maden is the Assistant Farm Manager at Intervale Community Farm (ICF), a thriving member-owned CSA farm in its 21st season of growing organic produce in Burlington, Vermont. Becky has worked on several diverse vegetable farms throughout the country and around the world. At ICF, Becky is either found in the greenhouse, on a tractor, or jogging between the two...

Organic growers are increasingly choosing to grow year-round in high tunnels, in part to avoid the diseases encountered by field crops. Not only do high tunnels provide physical exclusion from airborne disease, but the environmental conditions necessary for the presence of many disease pathogens simply do not occur in high tunnel production. Of course disease is not eliminated entirely in...

Flossing Your Way to Organic Health: Musings on the Ethics of Organically Approved Pesticides  (and why you should visit the dentist) When I first began flirting with farming, it was closely tied to my commitment to a natural and organic lifestyle.  It came about at the same time that I stopped washing my hair regularly, sprinkled nutritional yeast on my...

Backpack sprayers being discussed by John Grande, Ph.D., from the Rutgers Synder Research and Extension Farm. Most farms have at least one backpack sprayer. They are cheap to buy, easy to run and are an efficient way to get the sprays on the crop. My farm is small enough that I will probably never use a tractor-mounted spray rig but...

Downy Mildew is a type of foliar plant disease that spreads under cool, wet conditions and affects many different crops.  Ornamental flowers, grapes, onions, basil, lettuce and cucumber all get Downy Mildew, a parasitic pathogen in the Peronosporaceae family.  Although they all come from the same “big, happy family”, different species of Downy Mildew attack different crops.  For example, Bremia...

The ceaseless challenge posed by pest, disease, and weed pressure in our vegetable fields can be disheartening at best. As we patiently tend to our crops through the summer months, it’s important to take a moment to observe and learn about what we’re up against. In today’s world of instant access and boundless information, there’s no need to go it...

Due to the hot and humid weather, lately many gardeners are noticing "blossom drop" on their tomato plants. Blossoms are drying up and dropping off before the tomato fruit sets. As explained by J.M. Kemble, Extension Vegetable Specialist and associate Professor, Alabama Cooperative Extension System: "This condition is NOT related to any nutritional disorder, or any disease or insect damage...

The pathogen Phytophthora infestans, commonly called Late Blight or Irish Potato Blight, has been responsible for the demise of potato, tomato, and other solanaceous crops worldwide for centuries.  It was the vicious culprit of the European, Irish, and Highland Potato Famines in the 1840’s and, more recently, the widespread epidemic in the Northeastern U.S. in 2009.  This pathogen strikes when...